Original title: Britain experienced the hottest December 31 in history: 15.8 degrees Celsius
The Met Office said on December 31 that Britain had just experienced the hottest new year's Eve on record, with the highest temperature in western England reaching a record 15.8 degrees Celsius.
The BBC reported that the warmest weather in the same period in recorded history occurred in southern and eastern England, including western villages and London.
The Met Office said the extremely warm weather was driven by a warm and humid air flow from the Canary Islands. Stephen Dixon, spokesman of the Meteorological Bureau, said that the highest temperature of 15.8 degrees Celsius on the same day was recorded in East Yorkshire at 11:00 am GMT.
"We expect the temperature at night to be very mild and the lowest temperature records in some places will be broken," Stephen Dixon said He added that the warm weather is likely to challenge the highest temperature record on New Year's day in 2022 - which means that it may set the highest temperature record for the same period for two consecutive days.
The Met Office says record temperatures have risen because of climate change - research shows that the frequency of breaking records for warm temperatures in winter has increased nine times. At the same time, the frequency of extreme cold in winter is also increasing. It is expected that the weather will become cool from next Tuesday.
The last time Britain was so hot on New Year's Day was back in 1916, when Cornwall recorded the highest daytime temperature of 15.6 degrees Celsius in British history on New Year's day.